Games We Played: Fuzzball

Kudos to Steve Givens! From his blog:

Welcome to the first installment in an occasional new series of blogposts called “Games We Played.”

The idea behind this series is to — in a quick and hopefully fun way — pass on to my grandchildren’s generation the games we played as kids. And by games I don’t mean Monopoly and Chinese Checkers and I certainly don’t mean any game that can be played sitting on the couch with a computer, tablet or phone in your hands.

I’m talking about the games we played outside with friends in the neighborhood. For me, that was in the late 1960s and early 1970s in a North St. Louis neighborhood called North Point, nestled up against Walnut Park, Baden and the St. Louis County line with Jennings. But what I’ve learned talking to some friends and family about these games is that our memories of the rules of these neighborhood and schoolyard games are widely inconsistent. Even the names of the games varied by when and where they were played.

But that’s kind of the point. We all remember the games and the rules differently not because we’re all old people losing our memories — although that most certainly is true in the case of some of my friends (naming no names here and present company excepted) — but because there were NEVER any firmly established rules to begin with. These were the games we made up ourselves or inherited from older siblings and changed to meet our own needs and abilities. Making up or adjusting the rules was all part of the game and, I think, that made us smarter, more resilient and more creative kids.

Today I begin with THE seminal game of my childhood. Fuzzball was one of many, many derivatives of baseball that we played in North Point. No doubt kids in other parts of the country played some version of this game, but this one has a distinct St. Louis heritage because its roots are tied to another St. Louis-born game called corkball, which was originally played with broomsticks and roundly carved and tape-wrapped pieces of cork from beer barrel bungs. That game became so popular that official bats and balls were eventually manufactured to meet the needs of the many who played it. According to a Wiki page, the game was played in the streets and alleys of St. Louis as early as 1890, and as time went on the game travelled around the country as St. Louis servicemen taught it to their buddies during World War II and the Korean War.

But enough about corkball, other than to say that little ball was hard and could blacken an eye or knock out a few windows if not played in a big old field (like the corkball fields at several city parks like Hickey Park in Baden) or inside a rectangular cage like those that popped up adjacent to taverns around town. It also hurt like a dickens when it hits you.

So for brevity, which is already waning I realize, let’s just say that in the interest of safety, the cost and hassle of window replacement and childhood innocence, someone eventually replaced the corkball with a tennis ball, which is, of course, how fuzzball got its name. The game could now be played in backyards, alleys and schoolyards without incurring the wrath of neighbors and principals. Usually. By the way, some kids burnt the fuzz off the ball to make it go faster.

+ The game was usually played with four players, two to a side, a pitcher and a catcher. There were no bases to run. It was simply a game of pitching and hitting. Here are the rules as we played it:

+ There’s no ump so no “called” balls and strikes. Just throw the ball over the plate.

+ Two strikes and you’re out.

+ One strike and you’re out if the catcher cleanly catches a swing and miss.

+ Foul tip behind the plate and you’re out. And by “plate,” I mean whatever was laying around, usually someone’s glove or jacket.

+ Foul tip caught by the catcher is a double play, if there is an “imaginary runner” on base. More on this in a minute.

+ Ground ball or fly ball caught by either player is an out.

+ Ground ball bobbled or past the pitcher is a single.

+ That single gives you an imaginary runner on base, and these “ghosts” move around the base path one base at a time with subsequent hits. A double would move the runner two bases.

+ See rule about double plays above.

+ A pop fly or line drive past or over the pitcher’s head is a double.

+ If you’re playing in a schoolyard with a fence, over the fence is a homerun and off the fence a triple.

+ If there’s no fence, you can designate anything you want as the homerun marker, of course.

Three outs and you switch sides. If the innings seem to be passing too quickly, you can always call for “double innings,” but any imaginary stranded runners do not get to stay on base when you begin the second set of three outs. Unless, of course, you change the rules.

That’s it. You can play with more kids and put people out in the field. You can play with just three and just rotate between pitcher, catcher and hitter. You can do what you want.

Until next time:

Get outside (when you can)
Play with your friends (when it’s safe to do so)
Make up your own rules.
Most importantly, have fun.

Fuzzball Games to Be Played on Vacant Lot This Summer

Originally posted on emissourian.com.

By Pauline Masson, Pacific Editor | Apr 2, 2016

A pair of weekend athletes spent a couple of days last week cleaning scrub and debris from the vacant lot at Elm and Watson in preparation for summer.

Leonard Parrott III and Paul Weislar II plan a season of fuzzball, the hybrid baseball game that is played with a cork ball bat and denuded tennis balls.

The game, which originated in St. Louis, can be played with as few as two or as many as 10, which is fine with these enthusiasts.

“We put the word out and we’re expecting a lot of players to show up,” Parrott said. “And I mean players of all ages.”

This is a sandlot game where kids are welcome to play with the adults. The rules come from baseball and are modified to fit the situation.

“We take it easy on the kids. They pitch to each other,” Parrott said. “But we’re pretty aggressive with the adults.”

Fuzzball, also known as Indian Ball, can be played in an area from a regular baseball field to a side street or yard because there is no base running.

Some St. Louisans consider the game to be a minor league training ground for future corkball, another quasi baseball game that originated in the streets and alleys of St. Louis.

For the Pacific game, Parrott and Weisler took advantage of a diagonal paved strip of asphalt pavement to set up the pitcher’s mound and batter position. They painted bold orange diagonal strips along the edge of the field to determine the length of a hit ball that qualifies as a single, double, triple, or home run.

A large metal backdrop, painted with the words Hee Haw serves as the catcher.

“If the ball hits that, you’re out,” Parrott said.

“Corkball” (read: FUZZBALL) Tournament in U. City

Some guys in University City, Missouri, have been playing what they call “corkball” for quite some time… problem is, it’s not actually corkball. The game they play is really fuzzball (since they use tennis balls, not corkballs), but, for whatever reason, they don’t call it that. Now, there’s nothing wrong with playing fuzzball… hell, it’s a fun game! But if you’re gonna play fuzzball, call it fuzzball. If you’re gonna call your game “corkball,” then you should be using corkballs and helping to support a great local business, the last of its kind to make corkballs, Markwort Sporting Goods.

*Sigh*

ANYWAY, these guys have an annual tournament in U. City coming up later this month (August 18-19) and they invite anyone out there interested in playing corkball fuzzball to form a team and enter the tournament. Details are included in the flyer below and the rules will be posted after that.

Starting a Corkball or Fuzzball Club

If you live in a city or town with no known corkball or fuzzball action and you’re itching to get something started, then this article is for you. I’ve taken some time to list pretty much everything you should consider when starting up your own club, whether it be a really laid-back squad for the occasional pickup game, or a more serious, competitive league with separate teams, stats, standings, and a final championship game. What it all boils down to is you need to find some people to play, and recruiting enough players, from the recreational to the serious, can be pretty difficult. But don’t get discouraged; these tips should make it easier for you to get something started.

RECRUITING PLAYERS

If you’re trying to start up a corkball or fuzzball club or league in your city, you might be wondering how you’ll be able to find enough people to play. After all, it’s not like a whole lot of people anywhere have even heard of the game before! Well, I thought I would post about some of the ways I went about recruiting people so that others may try the same thing. It worked for me, so it will probably work for you, too. Give it a shot! There’s no harm in trying. And you’ll become an ambassador for a game that could really use some extra exposure.

First and foremost, come up with a plan. Know where you’ll want to play your games (find a good local park or ball diamond that’s not being used, or even a school playground or church yard—preferably one with some sort of backstop). Locating a good ball field may be harder than it seems, but if you investigate some area parks first, you should be able to find one that will work. It’s always a good idea to check with the park officials first, too, to make sure no other games or activities will be scheduled when you’ll want to play. It’s also good to start doing this early, like in February or March, so that you can hope to start playing by mid-April. Make sure you allow plenty of time for organizing and recruiting.

Estimate how much money you will need for equipment. You have to consider a few boxes of balls, plus a few bats, at least two sets of catcher’s gear (masks and shin guards, especially), batting helmets, home plate, pitcher’s rubber, and some way of marking the field, either with chalk, paint, or orange cones. And don’t forget an equipment bag to put it all in. You might also want to invest in a new cooler or Gatorade dispenser. Total everything up and try to come up with a fair amount to charge everyone for dues (to help pay for all of this stuff). You also need to allow enough time to locate and order this stuff online if you don’t live near a sporting goods supplier that carries it locally.

You will also need to come up with a name for the club or league. Name it after your neighborhood, park, suburb, city or town. Or pick a name that is completely unique and different. Just be creative and be sure to include the word “corkball” or “fuzzball” in there so it’s obvious what it is. A logo to go along with the name would be nice to have off the bat, too, but it’s not crucial. If you have a friend or relative who’s skilled at illustration, art, or design, you might consider asking them if they’d whip something up for you. Having a logo to display on a flyer for your club will attract a lot more attention than not having one, and is something you can put on a T-shirt later, too.

Create an email list. A Yahoo or Google group work great because they use people’s e-mail addresses. You can also set up a discussion group on Facebook. Facebook is good to use since so many people are on it already, and it’s easy enough to create a group there and invite your friends.

Make a flyer! You can do this by hand (old school!) or use MS Word, Adobe Illustrator, Powerpoint, etc. Include the name of the club, a brief description and history of the game, where you plan on playing, dates, times and contact info (don’t forget to include your phone number). Also include a link to your email list and/or Facebook group (above).

Next, talk with all of your friends, coworkers, neighbors, drinkin’ buddies—basically anyone you see on a regular basis—and tell them what you’re up to. And don’t be shy to come right out and ask them if they would be interested in playing! But be prepared to answer their questions. If you already play softball or baseball then you can ask the guys you usually play with, too. Or if your kid plays little league ball, check with the parents of his teammates. Invite the ladies as well as the guys; remember that you may find a couple of women to play who are as good as (if not better than) some of the men. It’s best to start off as a “recreational league” and tell everyone that so they know it’s not going to be competitive. You can always make it more competitive later, but at first, to attract newbies, just tell them it’s just for fun and to get out and learn a new game. Give each of them a flyer, too, to help them remember. Then keep bugging them about it until they commit or tell you they’re just not interested.

Post your flyers in local bars and taverns near the park where you’re going to be playing. Sports bars are especially key, since so many of the folks who go there are already fans or may already play some sort of recreational sports. It’s a good idea to ask the manager of the bar where you can post the flyer, though. You don’t want to create any enemies. Heck, the manager might even be interested in playing, too.

Check to see if your local sporting goods stores have some sort of bulletin board. Many may have one and you can just tack it up there, too. And then keep checking back every week or so to make sure the flyers haven’t disappeared. Same goes for the bars mentioned above. Someone might see your flyer and take it home with them (which may be a good reason to include little tear-off strips at the bottom with your phone number or email address… that way people can just tear those off and take them home instead of the whole flyer).

Hit some local ballfields, recreational centers, athletic clubs, gyms, libraries, grocery stores, and the YMCA and look for bullletin boards at those places, too. Keep tabs of all the places you flyer so you can make the rounds and check them in the upcoming weeks.

Post about your new club on Craigslist. Craigslist is completely free and a LOT of people use it. This can be done in the “activity partners” section under “community.” Like this.

Do a search online for local message boards/discussion forums that have some sort of sports-related forum. Community/neighborhood email lists are also good to use, as are NextDoor.com and Reddit. And your local daily newspaper may have a forum you can use. Check other local media outlet sites (radio, TV, entertainment and online news sites) to see if they have something like that. Yelp.com is good to use for this, too (look for the “Talk” section for your city or town). Then post all of your info there and watch them periodically for replies (some people may have questions about it, esp. since it’s not a really common sport). Just like flyering, make sure you keep track of all the places you post about your new club online, so you can check back at each site again in a few days or weeks.

If you do all of the above, you should not have a problem in recruiting a good group of people to start with. You will find that some stop showing up after a while, but others who get really into it might start inviting their friends to come check it out.

The next step, then, is to get everyone together, go over the rules (make copies for everyone to take home with them) and start playing. Remember to start off slow with some basic catch and batting practice first. Get them used to handling, throwing, catching, and hitting the ball. Tell your pitchers to ease up and not to throw blisteringly fast, at least not right away. Getting the ball over the plate so the batter has a chance to connect with it is more important. Let everyone feel how fun it is to smack those little balls!

Good luck!

The South Side of Luck: Fuzzball

Cool video of some guys playing a pickup game of fuzzball in the parking lot of Kennard CJA in South St. Louis…

HEC-TV | It’s A St. Louis Thing: Corkball (and Fuzzball)

via hectv.org

Thanks to Shane Kinzel for sending this along!

Get Fuzzy

By Steven Fitzpatrick Smith and published on The Commonspace in April of 2002.

The older generation always tends to wax nostalgic about the good old days. Corner stores, kicking the can, rushing the growler, sandlot baseball, the neighborhood theater and your local cop. Times change, but not everything changes so much that it no longer resembles what once was.

Pickup games of any sport have changed dramatically from the days when Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola would play pickup baseball anywhere from Sublette Park to Tower Grove. Today, most unorganized pickup games consist of fast-pass, back-alley basketball. Baseball was easily the most popular sport back in the day and has died down to an all-organized form. However, the less-complicated cousin of baseball has not only continued as a raw and sometimes loosely organized sport but also thrived. Fuzzball is the classic street game of St. Louis. The game is derived from forms of corkball and bottlecaps, both games that were played on the city’s streets in the ’20s and ’30s. The game is relatively simple, a sort of lazy man’s baseball. This traditional game has survived the evolution of the urban sport, and has survived on its own merits. It is easy to play, needs few players and has a simplified strategy. Just as in corkball, the game consists (in its basic form) of a hitter who uses the skinny, broom-handle style bat and a pitcher who uses the “fuzzy” tennis ball. This short form allows games to be played with as few as two people, but on occasion, fielders and catchers may fill out the team. The strategy is simple. The field is laid out in consideration of the particular design of a schoolyard, with the emphasis on the pitching and hitting. The batter has five balls and two strikes, with schoolyard rules of outs being tip fouls, caught on a strike or caught on the fly by the pitcher. There is no running, and the number of bases taken in a hit depends on where the ball lands.

The popularity of fuzzball is evident in the warm, summer months, in late afternoons with most city schoolyards having at least one game in progress; on the finer fields or on Saturdays, there are often three or four games in the same yard. In this urban game children are not the predominant players; instead, the age range tends to start at about 11 and will go up to 40 and higher. The bulk of the players are in their early- to mid-20s, nearly all male.

“Forty-one!” That’s the traditional call of the full count of fuzzball. The sights and sounds of a full yard of multiple games are rich: at least one radio with the sounds of Buck and Shannon, a fair amount of cussing, Slurpees, hit tennis balls in the far reaches of the field, a cooler of beer and an unused glove serving as homeplate. Often players will engage in brash wagering over simple balls and strikes. Just as in street basketball, games can be rough and competitive. It all depends on who’s playing.

The schoolyard of Kennard Classical Jr. Academy in South St. Louis is the site of what is called the “Fenway of fuzzball fields.” The back wall of the lot is akin to the famous green monster of Fenway Park, with home runs only counting if the hit ball is launched over the 30-foot fence. If the ball is batted well, it will hit the tin awning of the house with a satisfying metallic pop, or it will bounce onto Brannon Avenue, just like homers would bounce onto Grand Avenue at the old Sportsman’s Park. There are many other popular fields, such as “Busch Stadium” at Lindenwood School or the “Astrodome” at Our Lady of Sorrows.

While this activity is relatively harmless, the sight of large groups of men behaving in such ways is often disconcerting for neighbors. While they reminisce fondly about the days of games being played in the streets and schoolyards, many still do not tolerate such behavior. A new sign has been placed at the backstop at Kennard, outlining rules from barring liquor to times of use and banning unacceptable language. The back wall now even has an additional row of fence at the top, which makes it harder for the homeowners to get the thump on the roof that notifies them of another fuzzball homerun.

While most fuzzball is a pickup summer game, there is one organized league that plays during the winter, at the South Broadway Athletic Club in Soulard. The most competitive of the pickup summer gamers enroll in this league. Indoor fuzzball has been played there for decades. Indoor nets line up in this streamlined version of fuzzy, with two games going on simultaneously in the hall. The air is acrid with the odor of burnt tennis balls. (Somewhere along the line, a team began to burn the tennis balls with a propane torch, which allows a much more cutting pitched ball and also a much more difficult-to-see ball.)

The indoor version tends to amplify the intensity of the schoolyard game. The mood can swing from friendly to callous from strike to ball. It all depends on the pace of the game and who is winning. Most take the game very seriously, with some even going to the step of hand-rolling their own bats.

The players are in the most skilled echelons, with many honing their ability in the more refined game of corkball over the summer. Players proudly wear their championship jackets from their summer leagues. The beer is imbibed heavily. Tennis balls are placed on top of empty beer bottles or ashtrays and burnt until slick. Girlfriends patiently cheer on their boyfriends. Cigarettes are smoked. Sons of players wander around aimlessly trying to get attention. The odd bunch of players will consist of fathers and sons, guys with neck tattoos, some young, straight-laced-looking mortgage bankers and hardworking pipe fitters.

The sport is likely to continue in its pickup form. The popularity of organized baseball in this town assures a spot for this easier-played version. It will never become successful like its big money counterpart, but will likely continue on its own merits: easy to play and inextricably linked to the community.

Steve Smith sells underwriting for KDHX-FM 88.1 by day, and plays competitive fuzzball by night.

Fuzzball and Other Bat-and-Ball Games

Aug 31, 2000 by Colby Vargas

On the south side of St. Louis, where I spent most of my childhood years, beer and baseball were and still are king. As kids, we had to turn to baseball. But it was a rare day when you could throw together two full teams of nine from the kids who floated around our neighborhood. On hot days, we were lucky if there were two of us to play catch.

The field was another issue entirely — there were plenty of asphalt schoolyards with bases painted on, but for the true hops of a grass field, all we could find was an abandoned church lot that was mowed once a month. We made do, even made some amateurish attempts at groundskeeping, but if one of the older kids got hold of a pitch going the opposite way, the ball was gone, possibly through an apartment window.

We played anyway, of course, when we could muster the players and the equipment; but it was hard to pretend we were the Cardinals when the pitcher had to lob the pitch in and back up as quick as they could to play the infield and hopefully chase the runner down.

>It was Dave Cook, a squirrelly guy from two buildings down second only to me in his obsession with baseball, who came up with the rough idea for a game we would call “Fuzzball.” “My uncle from New York played it when he was a kid,” he said, grinning and bouncing a tennis ball in one palm. “All you need is a tennis ball and a bat — or even a broomstick. You pitch up against the wall, so you don’t need a catcher.”

I’d seen strike zones painted and scrawled up in back of our school, so we picked the lowest one and started playing every day, developing the rules of the game as we went. In Fuzzball, which reached its Zenith in fourth grade, when Dave hit 72 home runs and I struck out 350 batters, the focus was on the purity of batter vs. pitcher. We drew lines in the schoolyard for singles, doubles, triples. There was already a fence at perfect home-run distance. The pitcher could field anything on the fly or try to stop a ground ball, but there wasn’t any base running. After a double- or triple-header of Fuzzball, our hands were red, our arms aching. If other kids showed up, we played two-on-two or three-on-three, and every kid in the neighborhood did come out and play at least a little. But Dave and I were the Fuzzball gurus.

On the East Coast, they call it “Stickball,” and they bounce the ball, a pink Spaldeen, down the middle of the street. They actually run the bases. Grown-up (sort of) men play the game today in leagues. Chicagoans know it as “Strikeout.” In suburbs all over America, Wiffleball satisfies the same need — the space needed is similar and the threat of broken windows is less. Decades ago, inner-city youth tried to hit whirring bottle caps with their broomstick in the most extremely urban derivation of the game. For the solo player, stoopball and off-the-wall allow something close to baseball action.

The beauty of Fuzzball, and all the bat-and-ball games like it played all over the Western World, is its ease of play. The equipment, a tennis ball/Spaldeen/Super Pinkie and a bat/stick, are readily available to kids of all socioeconomic classes. The games are made to fit into the nooks and crannies of urban life. The rules are fluid, easily adapted to any city or milieu. Pick-up games are the preferred method of play. The essential skills of America’s Pastime are encapsulated in these games; if you can throw a curveball without seams on your ball, you’ve got something, and the 70+ swings taken by each player in a typical “Fuzzball” game have to help.

The popularity of basketball in most city neighborhoods has put a dent in the bat-and-ball games of my generation, but you might still come across a cluster of kids up against the back of a grocery store or scurrying between parked cars on a narrow street. If nothing else look for the strike zones painted or taped or scratched on brick walls in cities across the country.

A Love for Mutant Baseball

ODD-BALL ST. LOUIS DISPLAYS “A LOVE FOR MUTANT BASEBALL”

By John M. McGuire of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sunday, 8/20/2000, EVERYDAY MAGAZINE

Indian ball is just one of the peculiar games that have made St. Louis the center of the odd-ball universe. Or as Esquire magazine noted, “St. Louis has been giddily creative in constructing games around the concept of hitting a thrown object with a bat.”

The best known and oldest is the hardball variation called corkball, a game so St. Louis that it gave the city a curious reputation during World War II when local corkballers played the game on the decks of aircraft carriers or on military parade grounds. Back then, homegrown corkball was played in “cages,” most of them attached to the side of a tavern.

Other local variations are fuzz-ball, featuring a singed tennis ball that moves like a sphere possessed, and perhaps the oddest game of all, a batter-pitcher diversion called crowns or caps. In this game, usually played against the exterior wall of a saloon, the batter uses a broomstick and tries to hit a beer-bottle cap that is hurled with a vengeance, bobbing about like a crazed dragonfly.

These distinctly St. Louis games have one thing in common – kegs of beer, taverns and buckets of chili.

How did it all begin? The most precise story is that corkball was born at Mueller’s, a boardinghouse and saloon at Grand Boulevard and Greer Avenue. The year was 1890, and the story is that some members of the St. Louis Browns — an American Association team that a few years later would be rechristened the Cardinals in the National League — were sitting on the porch at Mueller’s polishing off a keg of brew. Chris Von der Ahe, a colorful saloonkeeper who called himself “Der Poss Bresident,” owned the team, which featured a player who would go on to become a baseball legend. He was Charley Comiskey, founder of the Chicago White Sox.

Comiskey might have been there the night that one of the players decided he needed exercise. He took the bung out of the keg, carved it into the shape of a ball, while another Brownie found a broom handle for a bat. Five players, not so tipsy, set the ground rules: One would be a pitcher, the other a catcher, with the remaining three playing the outfield. Like Indian ball, there was no running.

Eventually, the game evolved into organized leagues and manufactured equipment. For a time, the corkballs — baseballs slightly larger than golf balls — and slender bats used in the game were made by Rawlings Sporting Goods. Rawlings, based in St. Louis, dropped the line years ago, and now Markwort Sporting Goods on Forest Park Boulevard carries on the tradition.

Leagues such as Sportsman’s Corkball, South St. Louis and Santa Maria or Lemay Corkball became so identified with St. Louis that Bill Vaughn, the late Kansas City syndicated columnist, wrote: “St. Louis without corkball is San Francisco without cable cars, Baltimore without crabcakes or Boston without spaghetti,” noting that Bostonians eat more spaghetti than beans.

Corkball’s popularity has faded, but it’s still played at Jefferson Barracks Park, and there are seven teams and some 42 players, according to Len Renfrow Jr., 34, of Oakville, a second-generation corkballer with the Sportsman’s organization.

In June, corkball and St. Louis were featured in an Esquire article headlined “The Sport That Time Forgot.” Writer Charles P. Pierce noted that “St. Louis has a love for mutant baseball that is richer and more diverse than even that of New York, which has produced stickball, which hardly anyone plays anymore.”